NED Abstract

Copyright by American Astronomical Society.
Reproduced by permission
2009ApJS..180..283W
Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations: Source Catalog
Wright, E. L.; Chen, X.; Odegard, N.; Bennett, C. L.; Hill, R. S.;
Hinshaw, G.; Jarosik, N.; Komatsu, E.; Nolta, M. R.; Page, L.; Spergel,
D. N.; Weiland, J. L.; Wollack, E.; Dunkley, J.; Gold, B.; Halpern, M.;
Kogut, A.; Larson, D.; Limon, M.; Meyer, S. S.; Tucker, G. S.
Abstract. We present the list of point sources found in the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) five-year maps. The technique used in
the first-year and three-year analyses now finds 390 point sources, and
the five-year source catalog is complete for regions of the sky away
from the Galactic plane to a 2 Jy limit, with SNR >4.7 in all bands in
the least covered parts of the sky. The noise at high frequencies is
still mainly radiometer noise, but at low frequencies the cosmic
microwave background (CMB) anisotropy is the largest uncertainty. A
separate search of CMB-free V-W maps finds 99 sources of which all but
one can be identified with known radio sources. The sources seen by WMAP
are not strongly polarized. Many of the WMAP sources show significant
variability from year to year, with more than a 2:1 range between the
minimum and maximum fluxes.
Key words: catalogs, cosmic microwave background, quasars: general, radio
continuum: galaxies, surveys